Spock Unleashed
by BajaB
Summary: Spock decides the temporal Prime directive has a different interpretation to his original one.


_This is actually set after the Into StupidBadplot, oops, I mean Into Darkness movie, but it is more of an original series story. Half of this has been sitting on my drive for well over a year waiting for a better revision, but with the recent sad loss of Leonard Nimoy, I decided to just get it out there. Might be some ninja editing after I post it too._

_LLaP Spock_

Spock Prime completed reading the latest update from Starfleet regarding the incident with Kahn, and allowed a frown to show on his age-creased face. This was shocking enough to send a ripple of movement through the gathered High Council, which was in itself a highly unusual occurrence.

Spock paused for a few moments to gather his thoughts.

"It is clear the Federation is not proceeding along a course I would consider beneficial to the Vulcan people, or indeed, the Galaxy as a whole," his ancient voice croaked.

"What would you advise?" asked the current head of the surviving Vulcans, who was almost as old as Spock himself.

Spock again paused before speaking, a habit this collection of the brightest minds left after the destruction of their home planet had come to associate with deep thought by their eccentric visitor.

They waited patiently, as only as a Vulcan, or a machine, could.

The official report from Starfleet was even more whitewashed and vague than the initial ones covertly sent to Spock, indicating a high level cover-up was taking place to hide the basic incompetence and corruption he was becoming increasingly aware of.

Compared side by side, it was almost as if the original, more honest accounts were referring to a different incident all together. This latest one bore little relationship to the fact a near catastrophe was caused by forcing Khan Noonian Singh, one of the most dangerous humans to ever exist, into the role of an intellectual slave.

But then again, Khan had acted so irrationally it was like he was a different being to the brilliant but ruthless genetically engineered warrior who once ruled a quarter of Earth.

Spock believed the Khan he had met in his original timeline would easily have taken over the advanced Starship, the Vengeance, during its construction. With it, he would have conquered and ruled a lot more than one measly planet. His ambition knew no bounds, and his ruthlessness was equally as great.

Instead, the Khan of this timeline took actions that defied understanding. Which was lucky, since the technology this Khan had access to was above what Spock knew was available at the same point in his original time-line.

The fact Starfleet was actively pursuing technology to make themselves a greater military power is not necessarily a bad thing, considering how often they found themselves in conflict, but the arrogance and sheer stupidity of the people currently running whole divisions of Starfleet, such as Section 31, was staggering.

They didn't even appear to realise just how close to total defeat they had been, and still didn't appreciate the new beaming technology they now had access to, technology Spock knew had paradoxically previously only existed in the future 24th century that he had come from.

Then there was the resurrection-like abilities of the blood taken from Khan and presumably his fellow 'superior' beings. Somehow they had remained blissfully unaware of the possibility during his own time-line.

That made Spock pause in his thoughts.

Had they missed opportunities to create or use technologies? Had he been too trusting of the system and failed to make the best use of what they had come across in their original five year missions exploring the Galaxy? No doubt, but mostly that was a conscious decision made by the Federation council to avoid becoming the sort of civilisation they detested; the sort of civilisation that tried to enslave a highly intelligent being by holding the few surviving members of his race as hostages.

His frown deepened.

Spock no longer had any faith in the capabilities of his younger self or those of the Kirk of this time. There was little doubt in his mind that they, and indeed Starfleet itself, was unlikely to be up to the challenges that still lay ahead of them. In his opinion, something fundamental was missing from their mindsets, although he was honest enough to realise this was a very subjective opinion.

Age, after all, did have some advantages, and wisdom was one attribute Spock knew he had only gained over time.

V'Ger was still on its way, as were the powerful entities somehow linked to the currently extinct whales, along with a host of other threats out there, such as Trelane, and this latest fumbled incident with Khan demonstrated a level of inaptitude from everybody involved that clearly showed a severe lack of whatever it was that had made the crew of the Enterprise such an incredible success previously.

He had the option of turning all of his knowledge of future events over to the Federation to use to their advantage, and was receiving considerable pressure to do so, but that was unlikely to help make the organisation grow or mature. That is the fundamental basis of the Temporal Prime directive and was the main reason for Spock's initial inaction upon entering this timeline, although he had subsequently interfered anyway.

In fact, in light of the actions taken by Section 31 with Khan, it was actually quite surprising he had not already been abducted and forced to reveal his secrets.

Eventually, Spock reigned in his speculation and again addressed his fellow Vulcans.

"The Federation as it now stands risks becoming that which it most distains; a militant dictatorship," he announced. "Their push for technological superiority, at the expense of diplomatic and humanitarian concerns, is ultimately detrimental to a peaceful galactic civilisation."

Silence met his words as his audience processed his words.

It was fascinating thought Spock, that such an announcement by him in his own time, where he was quite famous, would have been greeted with immediate disagreement and outright hostility, but here, in this timeline, his words were given a gravitas beyond anything he could reasonably have expected despite the fact he was relatively unknown.

"And what of the effect on our people?" asked one councillor. "We are currently vulnerable and while not exactly on the verge of extinction, we are not in a position to refuse the protection of such an ally, especially if it is about to become a true power in the region. Standing against the Federation in any significant way may cause them to withdraw the little support they now offer."

"That is true," agreed Spock, "but the humans who make up the majority of Starfleet will not soon forget that we previously refused to share technology with them, and will likely not view us as equal partners in their exploration of the galaxy. I also believe that without significant Vulcan influence, the Federation will be stymied by an increasing number of hostile forces, and may well be utterly destroyed."

"You know specifically which opponent they will fail against?" asked a different councillor his neutral tone still somehow managing to convey an accusation.

It was also fascinating that many of the people in front of him still refused to accept that not only was time-travel possible, but that he was from a future that was increasingly unlikely to occur.

"Not with any certainty," he answered truthfully. "Many of the entities have the capability of wiping out the Federation, and it was a combination of many factors that prevented such an occurrence."

"Do you have no trust in your 'younger' self then?" asked a councillor Spock recalled being particularly recalcitrant. "Did you not claim your presence in Starfleet was a major influence in their success?"

"I have become aware that my counter-part in this time has become romantically involved with an officer under his command," Spock replied in lieu of a direct answer.

In actual fact, he considered the situation with Uhura as something that would likely improve young Spock's life and help him reconcile his human half much earlier than otherwise, but that had little bearing on his misgivings. The existence of the relationship would be viewed very differently by his current audience.

"Your recommendation?" prompted the head again.

"I will provide this council with a list of planets and races I believe would most welcome an alliance with the Vulcan people, and what course of action has the greatest probability of obtaining a beneficial treaty with them. Our diplomats can put themselves in a position to ensure such agreements are made without adding to the growing arrogance of the Federation. This will boost the influence of New Vulcan within the Federation while at the same time reduce our dependence on it for aid.

"In addition, I will outline several technological advances that I believe will put Vulcan science ships once again at the pinnacle of known technology."

There was an actual a murmur of surprise at this announcement, practically a riot in Vulcan terms, which he had half expected as it was completely at odds with his previous stance on divulging 'future' knowledge.

Spock knew he was violating any number of directives by committing to this course of action, but he intended on doing much worse before he was done, and if he failed at his task, at least he would leave his people in a better position than they currently were.

"Once I have given you the facts I believe are relevant and useful, I will take my leave from this planet; I do not want my experience to prejudice your findings any further, nor my presence to entice attacks from parties coveting my knowledge, and I find myself lacking the peace that is required to complete my Kolinahr," he finished dramatically, for a Vulcan.

He knew they would fight him; would construct logical arguments in multiple attempts to have him stay, but he had faith in his own determination that not even the oldest Vulcan in the room could come close to reaching.

In the end, he gave them a fairly detailed map of most of the Alpha Quadrant, with the political boundaries as they would most likely be at this time, as well as much of the Delta and Gamma Quadrants as he recalled, which was quite substantial.

While they were not extremely accurate, it was better than dozen of years of probes and exploration could do.

In addition, Spock highlighted areas that should be avoided, like the Borg's growing sphere of influence and the location of many of the super beings the Federation had encountered. Trelane would get no Vulcan play-things wandering into his demise this time around.

He compiled a biography of over a hundred races, including his personal observations as well as the standard information Starfleet routinely recorded.

Needless to say, the history of the Romulan race caused quite a stir amongst the conservative Vulcan survivors, and raised the spectre of an eventual reunification in order to reduce the possibility of extinction made real by the recent loss of over six billion Vulcans when their home planet was destroyed.

Then he taught them expanded Transwarp equations and the advanced theory behind using the calculations to develop transit conduits like the Borg. While Starfleet had managed to create transporters with unheard of capabilities using the simpler, less complete version of the equation, their implementation had exponential power requirements, ultimately limiting it.

That was still impressive though, and one of the many signs Spock took as path of doom for the still fledgling organisation.

When people could simply transport between planets, rather than undertake a true journey to get there, much of the wonder and awe involved in exploration and expansion disappeared. Without that wonder, people, humans in particular, tended to remain more closed minded.

The technology he gave his fellow Vulcans allowed them to immediately produce warp engines capable of speeds much greater than the current generation of ships, even without the full conduit capabilities, and that would keep them at least one step ahead of almost everybody else in the local galaxy.

Finally, Spock helped develop a crude low-resolution, multi-spectral sensor array, so that the Vulcan ships would be able to see danger coming soon enough for their more advanced engines to get them away from it.

Satisfied, Spock took command of one of the newly retrofitted scout survey ships, loaded it with supplies and equipment, and then left quietly, leaving no trace of his destination or true plans.

As per his agreement with the high council, no report was made of this to the Federation, aside from a brief public notice indicating he had withdrawn into privacy for religious reasons and was undergoing a spiritual pilgrimage.

Tellingly, Starfleet intelligence took this mean he was dead and the Vulcans just didn't want to admit it.

#

After taking his leave of the survivors of Vulcan's destruction, Spock began to seriously plan his course of action. He faced years of preparation, and there was simply far too much risk of discovery and exposure in the current sphere of the Federation. He needed a new base, one that was not likely to be discovered for the decades his plan might require.

An extended coughing fit over took him as he rose from his position at the helm in order to relieve the cramp that set in after even a few hours of sitting. He also really needed to do something about his failing health.

Age was taking its toll, and he was acutely aware of it. Not only were physical aches and pains often present, there were rare, but increasingly frequent instances where he found himself having thoughts he did not consider naturally his own.

Mostly he blamed this on the short period of time his Katra spent inside Leonard McCoy's head, but there was a constant worry that he may be experiencing the beginning stages of Bendii Syndrome. The spectre of that horrifying disease and the effects he had seen in his father (despite the fact it was poison induced and not truly the disease), cause Spock a great deal of uncharacteristic worry, which in itself was more reminiscent of McCoy than himself.

He had several options available to him, including using the transporters to reconstitute himself in a younger configuration, as had happened to several members of the Enterprise-D on Stardate 46235.7, but that did not appeal to him as it involved a substantial element of chance, with the potential for catastrophic failure unacceptably high.

Accidentally splitting himself into his good and evil 'components' would likely be very detrimental.

The flowers of Omicron Ceti III could reverse many of the age related problems he currently suffered from, possibly even returning him to flawless health, but he doubted he had the capacity to overcome the spore's effects without 'his' Kirk nearby to send him into a homicidal rage.

It was almost insulting how easily Jim could do that.

He knew of several races with medical science advanced enough to provide a significant boost to his lifespan, and there was technology around that could transfer his consciousness or even just his brain into a robotic body, or transfer his brain into a cloned body, but all of them involve far too many uncontrollable factors that again could lead to disaster.

No, there was another possibility that offered less risk, and fit in perfectly with some of Spock's other needs.

First, though, he required a few recruits, because no matter how talented he was, he could not easily attend to all of the tasks that needed doing. Even piloting this simple ship normally took a crew of four, and it was rather taxing to keep on top of it all himself.

While he knew many of the surviving Vulcans would have joined him had he simply asked, he felt there was again an unacceptable risk attached to involving anybody else in his plans. It may be just age induced paranoia, but he decided to keep his plans as secret as possible.

It was not a coincident that this preferred path also provided him with the backup option of transferring his brain into a robotic body, should it become necessary.

Taking his well provisioned ship and setting a meandering course designed to lose anybody who might try to track him, Spock reviewed his resources.

The ship itself was a standard survey scout ship that normally took a crew compliment of only four. With the destruction of the Vulcan homeworld, such resources were at a premium, and this aging vessel was all that Spock felt comfortable in commandeering.

Likewise, the computer components and tools he stocked the ship with were of a lower quality than the best available to the remaining members of his race and their colony. His prestige with them was such that all he had to do was ask and the very best would have been supplied, but he felt keeping his requirements simple was the most discrete choice.

Besides, his plans involved utilising much better equipment anyway.

Not to say anything was sub-standard, since much of it was vastly improved from its original specifications by the limited guidance and advice he offered in his role as advisor.

Now however, the gloves were off, and there was no reason to hold back on the technology he knew.

Many times before in his long and eventful life, Spock had been forced to improvise technological solutions to unheard of situations using little more than bear skins and stone knives. He considered his current situation a step above many of those dire cases, but it was still a difficult road - more like working with iron tools.

Long before he reached his destination, the new warp engines were tweaked to 'within an inch of their lives' as McCoy would have said, sending the ship screaming through space at almost twice its previously impressive maximum speed. It was still considerably slower than Spock was used to, but much better than most other ships in this sector of space.

The shields were not actually that much stronger, but now ran in a modulating configuration that made them able to mitigate several times the amount of damage they could previously withstand, and the complementing new hull polarisation emitters and integrity field gave his little ship more adequate protection, for the moment.

Briefly, Spock considered the benefits of travelling to Exo III to use the android duplicator created by the long disappeared 'Old Ones' to make an exact duplicate of himself, but he shied away from that option when he took into account the history of those robots.

After all, having an identical copy of himself deciding to rebel would surely interfere with his plans, and unfortunately outweighed the attractive prospect of having somebody intelligent to talk to during the years that lay ahead.

Instead he stuck with his original idea and proceeded to a planet he expected this time-line's Enterprise would never encounter, since they had already taken Harry Mudd into custody during the now semi-infamous 'Mudd Incident'.

Arriving in close orbit behind the target planet's small moon, he set his improved sensors scanning for the facility he knew existed. It took all of a day to locate it, and another to find exactly what Spock had expected to find.

Locking the transporter onto his targets, Spock again checked the sensors thoroughly, looking to make sure he was undetected, and then carefully beamed his cargo aboard. The moment the transport was complete, the ship rocketed away on a deviously confusing course, designed to be difficult to trace.

Of all of his plans, the one possibility that concerned him the most was having some entity discover what he was going to attempt by tracking his movements. The potential for interference or disruption of his plans could not be underestimated, since he himself, usually with the aid of Kirk, had occasionally been that very influence, derailing some other Being's sinister appearing 'master plan'.

He considered many methods of hiding his theft, some incredibly subtle and devious, but in the end opted for the simplicity of leaving no trace aside from the missing goods he had appropriated. Besides, it was not like the current caretakers of the facility had any need to perform regular stock takes, at least not as far as he could determine, so it was unlikely his theft would ever be discovered.

Once he was finally satisfied that no pursuit was forthcoming, he began the task of reprogramming the stolen Andromedian robots to suit his needs.

While they were nowhere near the sophistication of other androids Spock had encountered, such as Rayna, Commander Data, or even Ruk, they were exactly what he required.

Advanced enough to hold and maintain a high degree of independence, and yet not even close to being considered truly sentient, they would make the perfect assistants and aides for the many tasks that lay before him. It was also beneficial that they had never once been activated in their long centuries of storage.

In a concerning moment of weakness on his part, he selected several specimens of the female Alice model he had found the most intriguing during his initial encounter with them so many years before. He could see no reason why he should not exercise his preference in which models to take, and all of the females were startlingly beautiful, but something decidedly non-Vulcan in his head guided his choice.

The fact they were all "fully-functional", as Mr Checkov had discovered, did not entered into his decision at all, in spite of the imaginary voice of Doctor McCoy sarcastically making that exact observation, somehow indicating he might be influenced by the needs of a future Pon farr.

In short order, three 'Alice' robots were up and running, with the fourth, a 'Norman', activated to be their co-ordinator. Spock was confident in his reprogramming and held little fear of his new workers rebelling against him, especially since he installed several fail-safes, but oddly found himself considering sharing his full plans with them.

Unfortunately, there was a fair chance of negative effects in introducing the possibilities of a time-paradox to his worker's thoughts. He did after all have firsthand experience with overloading this specific android model's logic processing capabilities.

Once again, he could just imagine McCoy's voice accusing him.

"You're lonely and afraid to admit it," the Doctor would have said, regardless of how improbable it would seem to most other people.

Of course there was a grain of truth to the imaginary accusation, since all of his closest friends and associates were in a future that was unlikely to ever exist, but he ultimately dismissed it as inconsequential.

The newly activated robots were quickly put to the test, completing a series of modifications to the old ship. New modules were designed, built and installed, producing stronger shields and an array of phaser weapons that would rival those on the original Constitution class Starship, which was well above the benchmark Spock was aiming for at this stage of his plan.

Momentarily satisfied with his progress and relieved he now had help running and maintaining the upgraded ship, Spock again set a seemingly random course, this time heading for the planet where he hoped to build a base that would be his home for years to come.

The as yet undiscovered (by the Federation) and sparsely inhabited planet of the Ba'ku was an ideal location for a secret base, being far away from the Federation and most other civilisations. While technically advanced, the Ba'ku had abandoned their industrial life-style and opted for a simpler way to live, which meant they were extremely unlikely to detect him or his activities.

But the most important thing about the planet was its rings.

Not only did the rings interfere with all normal scanners, the unique metaphasic radiation contained in them would work to reverse Spock's age. It was a 'proven' technique with no known adverse side-effects that should allow him the time to develop the technology he required to complete his grand, self-appointed mission.

The Ba'Ku colony limited itself to just the corner of one small continent, leaving most of a planet from which to choose a site for his new temporary home. With no satellites or advanced scanners that he could detect, it was highly unlikely that he would be found by them, so long as he took some sensible precautions.

It took a lot longer than anticipated to locate a suitably inaccessible valley in which to establish the entrance to an underground base, mainly because he was still instructing his crew in the operation of the ship. Using the Transporter as a mining rig took some ingenuity, but nothing beyond his abilities, and the project doubled as a valuable training exercise for his helpers.

Within a matter of hours they were able to create a cavern large enough to comfortably hold the small vessel, with an entrance located under a large overhang so that it was virtually impossible to spot from the air. The site of a relatively recent landslide became the dumping ground for the removed material, blending in with the existing rubble to effectively hide it.

With a safe hiding place in which to stay while the unique properties of the planet worked on him, Spock set about reprogramming the rest of his cargo of Androids and assigning them to various tasks.

"I do not understand the objective," complained one of the recently activated androids sometime later. "The transporter functions correctly and is able to rematerialise the original to within specified tolerances. Bypassing the existing protocol increases the likelihood of introducing an erroneous deviation. Why do you wish this?"

Spock found the lack of scientific imagination and intuition of the androids sometimes detracted from the quality of the work they produced, but at least they all had a modicum of curiosity, and were unfailingly logical.

It was quite endearing.

"We will be endeavouring to rematerialise the constituent components in a configuration different to the original pattern," he patiently explained.

"To what purpose?" asked the Alice android, whom Spock found himself unexpectedly becoming quite fond of.

"To be able to create new combinations of materials out of raw ingredients in a two step process," he answered.

"Ah," accepted the Alice in understanding. "You wish to be able to rapidly manufacture new items."

"Yes," acknowledged Spock impressed by her astuteness. "Also, I find the fare made by the food synthesisers only slightly more palatable than protein resequencers, which are vile at their best, and unless I begin foraging in the forest outside, I will eventually run out of quality food and will be forced to endure what can be made with my existing equipment."

The Android paused, wondering if its strange new master might be joking, although he did not seem to be the type. Her base personality, designed to serve her ancient and long-gone masters included patterns for many personality types and quirks, but this master was outside all of her parameters. Eventually she gave up trying to work it out and returned to her task.

After an extended period of development running into months on his new home planet, a surprisingly frustrated Spock found they were only able to develop a very crude sort of replicator. It was totally unsuitable for the task Spock needed it for, and it had already taken far too long.

The resulting device could be used to mine, separating out the various minerals, ores and elements. 'Waste' rock and sand was often placed back in the areas it formally occupied in a way that made it virtually impossible to detect any disturbance despite the lower volume. Where this was not possible, this waste was reconstituted in a denser form and used in ongoing construction of the base. The removed useful materials were moved to the growing stockpiles as a completely purified resource, ready to be used in any number of manufacturing processes.

Still, it was completely unsatisfactory, and the undesired prospect of subsisting on current synthesised food was looming ever closer.

Not one to dwell on his failures, Spock considered his options.

There was little doubt that he could eventually develop replicator technology to suit his needs, but the longer he took to complete his plan, the more chance there was that something would disrupt it. Reviewing his knowledge of this era, he decided there were two possibilities.

The first was the planet in the Omicron Delta region that for a brief time became known as the Shore Leave Planet.

Constructed by an alien race long ago, the planet's sole purpose was to provide fun and amusement to travellers. Although Spock had no intention of travelling there to take a break from his labours, the mechanical mind-reading central computer and its enormous and high speed underground manufacturing capabilities could potentially provide him with the answers to his development dilemma.

All he would have to do was land on the planet while thinking that having the complete construction plans and programming of a replicator from his time would be the best fun he could imagine, and the machine would presumably obligingly provide him with them. He could then copy the plans into his Tricorder and leave.

Spock knew he had the mental discipline to achieve his part of the task, but he was less certain that the advanced alien technology could do what he hoped even if it was drawing on his own knowledge, both conscious and subconscious, to build the required objects.

More importantly, he has justifiably concerned about what the almost sentient computer might do if it scanned his mind and found out more than Spock was willing to share. Previous experience showed him it was not the brightest of machines, and only the presence of the caretaker kept it functioning as it should. What it would choose to do if it saw everything in Spock's mind was unpredictable.

The other option was a device he had never personally encountered.

As far as he could determine, history from before the Nerada's intrusion had remained identical to that of his own time-line, so the so called 'Repair Station' encountered by the Enterprise NX-01 under Captain Archer had still existed.

The NX-01 had reportedly destroyed the station in order to rescue their abducted crew member, but later returning ships confirmed the station was back in operation, presumably once again secretly kidnapping occasional crew members from ships that stopped to use its services and replacing them with dead duplicates.

Spock was not aware of the eventual fate of the station in his time-line, but he was certain that such an abomination would not be allowed to continue existing within Federation space. The fact it used the kidnapped sentient beings as living processing power sealed its fate, and the technology it contained made it a target for any number of people, including Spock himself.

It was surprising the Federation hadn't already plundered it for its technology, but then again, they probably had their hands full with more exciting research, like giving the most dangerous Human Augment to have ever lived the training and resources to build super weapons.

Decision made, Spock wasted no time in taking his ship from its hangar, leaving behind most of the robots and supplies to continue working on various programs including mining more ores and minerals from the mountain containing his cavern.

He could not recall the exact coordinates of the alien Repair Station, but was accurate enough in his estimation to soon find Federation warning buoys, ironically leading him straight to it.

Sure enough, he found the station was again fully operational, and wondered how many living brains now supplemented the core processor, and how best to tackle the problem of obtaining the technology from it.

A spread of standard photon torpedos proved to be very effective.

"I thought you were a pacifist," said one of the Barbara androids as the phasers cut through the unprepared station's damaged hull with medical precision.

"Indeed, so did I," agreed Spock, once again wondering just how much McCoy had affected him.

The surprise attack worked, and the station was soon reduced to a cloud of debris, some of which immediately began to work on reassembling itself.

Spock's sensors easily penetrated floating sections of the station, allowing him to quickly locate many of the parts he was most interested in - specifically, the computer core, the part not made of the brains of organic beings that is.

It took some fine grained work with the phasers and tractor beams to cut it away from the rest of the wreckage, but soon the valuable core was aboard, along with several metric tons of salvaged materials and equipment. Force fields enclosed and separated every part of the device, ensuring it could not attempt to reintegrate, or to somehow 'infect' his ship.

Bounty claimed, Spock set a looping course designed to throw off any pursuers that might come to investigate the destruction of the Repair Station.

When he finally returned to his base, mere weeks after setting out on his mission, he was rather surprised to discover how much it had changed.

"Welcome back, Mister Spock," greeted the smiling countenance of one of Normans.

"Explain why you have deviated from your orders," Spock calmly demanded.

"We have followed your orders precisely," answered the Norman, only slightly confused by Spock's lack of friendliness. "Three thousand metric tons of material has been mined and sorted into its components with the modified transporter. Additional storage areas have been constructed inside of the mountain to house the purified materials, and suitable passageways manufactured to allow access along with additional facilities that will logically be required."

"You were not instructed to remodel the existing landing area," accused Spock. "Nor were you told to fabricate decorative walls, pillars, or beams."

"You did not define the style to be used," answered the Norman. "The unwanted material from the mining activities required no additional energy to be reconstituted as smooth walls. Increasing the density of the walls as you instructed lowered the space taken by the waste to the point where we could be undermining the strength of the tunnels if we did not incorporate appropriate support structures."

"And the styling?" asked Spock, eyeing the admittedly more attractive walls of the hangar, being reminiscent of traditional Vulcan architecture mixed with ancient Grecian designs.

"We have an extensive database on the architecture of our makers. This particular design seemed appropriate," answered Normal, still smiling. "It is logical to make this complex visually attractive as well as functional, since you will be spending considerable time here."

"Indeed," agreed Spock before releasing the 'dead-man switch' in his hand.

Without fail, every single android immediately shut down where it stood as several of the kill switches placed while reprogramming them activated.

Several days later, Spock was able to confirm that the units were functioning exactly as they had been programmed to do and were operating well within his parameters. He had simply underestimated the degree of dedication to making his life safe and comfortable that was built into the basic nature of the androids.

Recalling that something like this specific motivation was what had originally caused the robots to decide to capture the Enterprise and use it to enslave the galaxy, Spock meticulously redefined their parameters again, this time being absolutely certain to set strict limits to their activities.

Not that he minded the work they had done, he admitted to himself.

As well as building the store room he had envisioned, they had began to expand his simple base into a network of labs, workshops, and living spaces while targeting the mining of useful materials.

The ores and elements extracted from these works were placed in large warehouse-like storage rooms for further purification and reuse. The rather large quantity of gold was an unexpected and welcome bonus, as many of the components needed to create the manufacturing equipment could be built with it in place of the more exotic alloys commonly used in the future, although efficiency would suffer.

Confident his workforce was not about to decide imprisonment was best for his long term health, Spock reactivated the androids and set them to work analysing the salvage of the Repair Station while he concentrated on the central computer core.

The Borg-like behaviour of the Repair Station fascinated Spock, and he was very interested in discovering if there was any link. Perhaps it was simply just another instance of machine evolution, but Spock found that possibility less likely than some link to the Borg, even with his knowledge of the Machine Planet that had effectively created V'Ger.

Many hours spent meticulously analysing every component taxed even Spock's inhuman patience, especially with the lessening but still present echoes of McCoy's biting wit deriding his single-mindedness, but eventually produced results.

Deep in the programming, he found his answer and as he suspected, there was indeed a tenuous link to those terrifying entities. A very basic directive in some of the most fundamental code of the Repair Station mirrored what had eventually become the Primary motivation of the collective. The idea of incorporating both the technology and the biology of other species into itself was indeed deeply ingrained in the device.

He could not determine what had occurred that made the station need to adapt how it went about fulfilling this command, but the additions and alterations to its operating parameters acted like an archaeological record of its development.

At its heart, it was basically the non-biological imparts Borg normally put into species it captured turning them into drones. While these would normally be fairly harmless without a brain to work with, this particular unit had survived due to the incorporation of an unknown computer system. It then attempted to repair itself but no longer had the knowledge needed to create the nano-scale machinery normally utilised for this purpose. Nor could it assimilate anything fully the way it used to.

The incredibly versatile system managed to make use of micro-scale devices to begin a partial rebuild, but was not able to create weapons capable of overcoming the ships it later encountered.

After many rounds of rebuilding, attacking and usually being mostly destroyed, it developed the concept of subtlety. While no longer instantly and immediately attacking anything it came across delivered some successful captures, there were still enough defeats to keep the device small and relatively harmless.

At this point, an obviously foreign influence changed the device to force it to repair other ships, rather than attack them. The story behind this alteration would likely have been fascinating in itself, but was lost.

For a time, the Borg device functioned as a repair unit, but eventually its nature reasserted itself and it again began assimilating technology, under the guise of improving the services it could provide. At some point after this, it remanifested its need to incorporate biological components into its matrix, and the subsequent alteration of its methods was clear.

It rebuilt itself as the Repair Station, where it would lure ships in with its services, and only occasionally capture or destroy them. Likewise, it would only rarely kidnap a living being, and eventually became very good at hiding its actions, even going as far as being able to create a non-living but otherwise identical copy of any creature it enslaved.

Eventually it would have accumulated enough technology and processing power to recreate the Borg technology fully, but Spock had intervened.

Holding such a dangerous thing in his Base sent Spock's paranoia into overdrive, and he quickly determined the need to ensure it could never resurrect its Borg nature. He copied many useful sections of its programming, and then ruthlessly eradicated any trace of the rest. Every single physical part was subjected to scans and extreme scrutiny in order to make sure no Trojan Horses gained a foothold. The androids were perfect for this task, so long as they took sensibly extreme precautions to avoid possibly being infected with anything.

Spock himself began the process of analysing the replicator control portion, opting to build his own rather than risk copying something that may have a hidden agenda. It was a demanding task, but he found it oddly exhilarating.

In fact, Spock found himself rising to the challenge with an enthusiasm he had not felt for decades.

Surprisingly, the rolling back of some of his years, thanks to the radiation surrounding the Baku planet, left him unexpectedly energised and motivated. His brief experimentation with it allowed him to condense and accelerate the rejuvenating process, but he had not realised just how much age and the many trials of his long life had burdened his spirit and sapped his energy.

Now though, he was ready to once again take on the universe.

With the extensive use of the androids as efficient lab technicians and assistants, effectively multiplying the number of man hours spend on all of the various processes and jobs needed to develop the required sciences, Spock was able to build a relatively crude replicator.

It was more than sufficiently advanced to be used to create food vastly superior to the synthesisers on his ship, and advanced enough to create modified copies of itself.

The modifications were aimed at improving the capabilities of the replicator, allowing his android helpers to tirelessly experiment with tens of thousands of minor and major changes, keeping the ones that worked and discarding the others as they worked towards a more perfect device.

This exact same methodology would work for pretty much everything he needed to develop or improve, and could be handled by the androids with only minimal oversight or interaction.

He often found himself intrigued by many of the results and had to force himself not to be side tracked by the inadvertent discoveries sometimes produced by this exhaustive process lest he end up spending too much of his time unproductively.

The creation, or re-creation really, of a sufficiently accurate replicator was integral to his plan, but it was not the only technology Spock was going to rely on.

While it would provide the means to cater for much of his manufacturing needs, there was still the requirement to obtain or develop other technologies to use, and even with his android workforce taking on the bulk of the complex but repetitive tasks, it was going to take time.

Time, unfortunately, was his enemy.

With his health concerns being addressed by the planet's unique environment, there was still the ever increasing probability that some entity would stumble upon him and ruin his chance of success.

Several methods of time manipulation were known, some of which had real potential, but all of them had an element of worry that some incident, or even just a simple accident, could create disturbances in the space time continuum that might be detected and investigated.

Instead, somewhat rashly, Spock decided to make another foray into the galaxy to retrieve something the Federation had not yet stumbled across that could potentially be extremely useful.

The planet Scalos was exactly as he recalled it. The beautiful capital city's inhabitants, living their lives at many times the rate of normal beings, were likely able to detect him in orbit, should they happen to look, but they did not have the capability of doing anything about it. This was just as well because the speed they lived and moved at was well beyond even the fastest of Spock's androids.

Covertly obtaining a sample of the incredible radioactive water using by the transporter was an exercise in simplicity, as was ferreting out the formula used to accelerate a person to Scalosians speeds, and its antidote.

He considered leaving them information regarding how the Scalosians could fix their infertility issue, or even the antidote to their speed inducing water, as a sort of 'payment', but discarded the idea as a foolishly sentimental risk.

Using the modified water, he could place himself into a hyper-accelerated state that was actually slightly outside the realm of normal physics. It such a state, he could accomplish hours of work in mere seconds. There was a huge danger involved however, as proven by the unfortunate Mr. Compton who aged rapidly and died after receiving only minor damage to his skin back when the Enterprise originally encountered the planet.

Returning to his base, Spock was not presented with any surprises by his androids this time.

A thorough investigation of the hyper-accelerating water unfortunately revealed a massive issue with his plan of using it on himself. Tests showed that it reacted poorly with the rejuvenating effects of the planet his base was on, which was rather disappointing. There was also the fact that the processing speed of his computers, including those running the androids, were completely inadequate for him while he was thusly accelerated, negating much of the benefits.

Rather than risk his health, Spock relegated the use of hyper-acceleration to emergencies, rather than everyday use. He didn't need McCoy's imaginary voice to tell him there would likely be more than one occasion where it would come in handy for solving a time sensitive issue, if his experience to date was anything to go by.

Accepting the fact that one of his ideas for dramatically reducing the amount of time it would take him to be ready to enact his plan was a failure, Spock returned to developing other things he would ultimately need.

Specifically, he needed something to reduce his exposure to observation.

An efficient cloaking device the most obvious answer.

Even at this point in time, there were several cultures that had cloaking technologies. While his understanding of the Romulan developed device, combined with his experience with various Klingon versions, knowledge of alternatives such as masking circuitry, interferonic dispersion and even using holographic multispectral emitter systems, gave him an excellent understanding, he really needed to obtain one of the prototype devices the Romulans always seem to have around.

Indeed, reports of prototype Romulan ships with devices that only worked for short periods dated back to Archer's days at the helm of the NX-01.

In fact, Archer's mission reports included the location of a cloaked Romulan minefield. While it was been monitored by ships the NX-01 could not detect, Spock was confident of his ability to detect, disarm, and steal one of the mines without the use of a Quantum Beacon.

So that's what he did.

First he built a small probe ship, basically not much more than an engine and some specialised sensors. Manned by one of the Norman Androids, it retraced the path of Archer's travel, as best it could, to the minefield and began scanning for the mines. A second ship containing a Barbara waited some distance away, hiding amongst an asteroid field in case their search stirred up trouble from the ships patrolling the area.

It took some time, but eventually the Normal found a mine, and promptly got blown up by it. There was nothing left that could possibly lead back to Spock, he had taken extra precautions when designing the mission to ensure that.

After waiting for the expected investigating ships to leave, the second ship returned, not actually stopping at the base but continuing on after delivering it's results via a highly encrypted transmission. It would travel for several more months, sending out nonsense transmissions to uninhabited planets before eventually apparently malfunctioning and crashing into a sun.

With the general location of the minefield and more up to date information on the expected response times and type of ships the Romulan's were deploying to patrol the area, Spock again decided to risk everything to take to the field in person.

Capturing one of the mines involved the nerve-wracking use a modified Transwarp personal transporter from a huge distance away on to the Vulcan Scout Survey ship.

Disarming the mine was only possible due to Spock making use of the Scalosian hyper-acceleration. there was a lot of manual work involved in trapping the bomb within the transporter buffer and analysing it without computers to aid him, but he was up to the challenge. Everything he could was disarmed or disabled before the device was rematerialised, and even then he still needed to manually disassemble the mine before it could enact any failsafes.

Under the pressure of the consequences of failure, Spock unexpectedly realised he was enjoying himself. He blamed it on his remerging human hormones.

Unfortunately, as expected, the cloaking device itself was not good enough for his purposes, but it gave him a solid starting point, which was what he really needed.

After several months and with extensive use of the ever improving replicator, he had a system that combined several different stealth technologies and had a 90% probability of concealing him from all but the most advanced civilisations he was expecting to encounter in his mission, which was an acceptable risk for these earlier stages and missions, but ultimately carried too high a risk for the later parts.

While he had some knowledge of the device recovered from a captured Suliban cell ship, provided from the 28th century, he did not know enough to make it a viable development target.

His current system already incorporated masking circuitry and a primitive form of multi-adaptive shielding that could be improved, but he had a different, loftier goal in mind.

Instead he focussed on creating what many of his human associates had termed the 'holy grail' of cloaking technologies; a phasing cloak device like the prototype Federation scientists had created and tested with tragic results about the USS Pegasus. A later incarnation of the Enterprise under Picard had successfully used the device after only minor alterations by the Cheif Engineer. Both the Klingons and the Romulans had later developed their own working interfasic versions, along with at least two species encountered by the USS Voyager in the Delta Quandrant, so Spock was confident it was viable option.

Needless to say, testing would be done by androids some distance from his base, just in case similar malfunctions or accidents occurred.

Faster ships were also something Spock desired. While he could continue to tweak and endlessly rebuild the engines of the scout ship until they reached a top speed of much closer to warp ten, he had always been fascinated by the modifications made to the Enterprise's engines by the survivors of the Kelvan Empire when they briefly capture it.

Under their control, the Enterprise had somehow exceeded all theoretical maximum speeds as it headed off on a three hundred year mission to return to the Andromeda galaxy to report on how ripe for invasion and conquest the Milky Way was.

By Spock's calculations, the multigenerational ship was due to have already encountered the galactic barrier and been destroyed. He had seen no reports of any Federation ships encountering the survivors, so it was possible they were still stranded on the planet where they crashed, or possibly they had successfully captured another vessel and were already on their way across the void between the galaxies, since this was a different time-line.

Either way, once he had a better cloak and a faster ship, it would be worth making a trip out to see if he could recover any of their technology. Specifically, the engines. Even Transwarp drives had not obtained the sort of performance of the Enterprise after those changes, which were made in mere days by a handful of beings!

Assigning appropriate numbers of androids to perform the 'menial' intellectual tasks for each of his research and development tasks, Spock metaphorically rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

It took two years to get the replicators to a point where Spock felt they were adequate and further development was a waste of resources.

During this time he made significant progress on cloaking, incorporating many of the advances he made into his ship and base to make his activities even more undetectable, but he had not yet managed to create a stable phasing cloak.

At that point it was good enough for him to make riskier trips. So he put aside further development for a while to work on other systems.

His androids, while prevented from improving themselves to any major degree, were upgraded with additional Duotronic computer cores that made them much better knowledge workers, although Spock purposely declined to give, or allow them to develop, true sentience.

He desired something substantially better for his main computing system though.

The scout ship was rebuilt to incorporate a basic Multitronic system that he limited in its capabilities by only impressing it with a heavily edited Engram of his mind. It made the system far less impressive than it could have been, but avoided the possibilities of creating any incidents such as the disaster perpetuated by M-5 when Richard Daystrom originally developed it.

Isolinear circuitry was still beyond Spock, and bio-neural circuitry a pipe-dream.

Spock knew of several systems already in existence with many times the computing power and capabilities of his chosen technology, but he really did not see the need to have a confrontation with the likes of Landru, the Oracle, or Vaal, let alone Nomad or v'Ger – the Federation would likely stumble over them soon enough.

With the replicators now at a point that met Spock's requirements, and computer systems that were beyond the leading edge of those available to the Federation as it currently stood, he finally felt he had moved up from an 'iron tools' level of technology.

Of course Spock still needed to develop or obtain weapons, as it was only prudent, and recreating super-weapons was disturbingly easy.

He had never before really considered how much in-depth knowledge on a massive variety of weapons was stored in his mind. From Tri-cobalt warheads to Quantum and Gravimetic Torpedos, and from Antiproton beams to Phased Polaron cannons, Spock realised he had an encyclopaedic understanding of the technologies required to build armaments superior to anything his target was likely to be able to shield against, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

He could easily wipe out planets with some of the things he had personally encountered, and whole star systems with others that he had studied in depth, such as Soliton Waves.

It was actually quite a shock.

In the end, he decided to limit his death-dealing capabilities to a few 'middle of the range' weapons including Phased plasma torpedoes that were pretty much a natural extension of the principles he needed for the phased cloak. He truly hoped not to need to use weapons that powerful, but experience had taught Spock it was better to have the capability and not use it than the opposite.

With those basic requirements set, he again turned his focus to the phasing cloak problem. While not strictly needed to enact his plan, there were enough issues raised by not having it make it worth the time needed to develop.

It took him another two years to succeed – a truly astounding achievement.

During this time, the Federation and the universe at large had not sat still, but after receiving word of several disasters previously avoided in his time-line, Spock stopped personally keeping track of events. He assigned several androids to monitor for certain situations and technologies he felt held the possibility of impacting his plan, but generally divorced himself from everything outside of his work and ignored the unfolding history of this alternate time-line.

Besides, it was time to build a new ship.

By now he had built several small craft for testing various technologies, and the original scout ship was still intact, although it bore little resemblance to the vessel he had departed New Vulcan in nearly five years earlier, but none of these fit the criteria needed to enact his plan.

While replicators were incredibly versatile devices, they were ultimately limited in how large they could make things. Androids functioned well as construction workers, but were not that much faster than humans for many of the tasks involved in large scale projects.

He needed to create the ability to manufacture something larger than anything he was currently capable of, and to do that, he needed some different technologies, and he knew just where to get them.

Spock did not go to the planet himself, since he still held grave concerns about the possibility of having his mind read. Instead, he heavily modified several androids, redesigning them for stealth and secrecy. Should they somehow be captured despite their weapons, shields, and multiple self-destruct mechanisms, it would still be practically impossible to extract any information about him or his activities from them.

Even the small ship they took was virtually untraceable, having been manufactured in a completely different star system from his base, out of materials mined locally there.

Their mission was to visit the Omicron Delta region and several other advanced facilities that Spock knew of. Using the limited cloaking available and advanced scanners, the plan was to basically steal their technology for his own use.

They were very successful.

Deep inside the planet's crust, in a chamber so massive it would have altered seismic patterns across the globe, if he had not specifically built machines to negate that side effect, a manufacturing facility easily the equal of the 'Shore-leave' planet it was mostly based on began to take shape.

Creating the large manufacturing facility went quicker than expected, mainly because Spock was able to devote all of his resources to it, since there was a much lower risk of discovery, hidden as he was, but also because the design involved quite a lot of self-build technology taken from the Borg-based Repair Station.

Having the machine build a large portion of itself was very helpful.

All of his existing ships including the scout ship were recycled, all of the replicators repurposed - everything went into building the new plant.

Once it was ready, Spock set it to turning out a new class of heavily stealth scout, firstly to test the facility, but also because he had an immediate need for them. The pocket warships were as close to undetectable as he could possibly make them. Small crews of androids manned these new ships and made more forays into the universe, secretly obtaining more technology.

After thorough testing, Spock yet again ventured forth, taking one of the new ships to a place he had initially decided to avoid.

#

"Do you know me?" Spock asked the large, pulsating stone donut in front of him.

"I see your primitive science knowledge has not advanced substantially since you last asked me a question," replied the Guardian of Forever, somehow still managing to make Spock feel as if he was personally being insulted.

"Not substantially," agreed Spock.

"Do you wish to again travel to your own past?" asked the Guardian as images began flickering at a staggering pace.

"Not at this time," answered Spock, completely aware of the implied irony in his answer. "I merely wish to view and record."

"Very well," answered the Guardian.

Nothing more was said until Spock, satisfied with the information he had gathered was about to transport back to his ship.

"Farewell, traveller," said the Guardian. "We shall meet again, and again, as the circle continues."

Spock raised an eyebrow, momentarily contemplating if the being was just 'messing with him' as McCoy might have said, or genuinely indicating something.

"Farewell," he replied, choosing not to be baited, and beamed back to his ship.

#

"These beings have a fascinating biology," said a Norman android from the science station.

"Yes," agreed the Barbara at the helm, deftly manoeuvring the stealth ship through the web of energies attempting to surround the unknown vessel currently under attack.

"Do we know why they are fighting?" asked an Alice from her engineering station.

"No," answered Normal. "Our mission is to obtain the technology these 'Tholians' use to make their energy webs, not to get involved in their border disputes."

While she did not have true emotions like a biological being, Spock's programming directed her to express the inability to satisfy her 'curiosity' in a very biological manner, so she sighed loudly, then and continued to monitor the ship's functions as they took advantage of the battle to steal the technology they required.

Still, she was certain her Master would have investigated, had he been present, but she was also quite 'pleased' that he was not risking himself be out here, although she was sure he would not remain cooped up inside the base for much longer.

#

The Romulans never discovered the theft of the full specification and manufacturing details of their most advanced super weapon, the Plasma Torpedo. Secure in their faith that they were the most advanced users of cloaking and stealth technologies in the universe, it never occurred to them to protect against a possibly more advanced version.

#

The extra-galactic Undine Planet Killer doomsday weapon proved ridiculously easy to disable as it travelled between the stars on its way to system L-370. All they had to do was fly a specially built ship, that was basically a huge Plasma Torpedo, straight down its maw to self-destruct in the right place, and the battle was over almost before it began.

Dismantling the whole thing and transporting the bits back to the base proved to be much more difficult, with the risk of being detected and observed a lot higher than any other of their missions.

The Neutronium hull was worth the risk.

#

The androids were immune to the mind altering affects of the barrier surrounding the galaxy. This let them successfully complete a mission to locate the remains of the Kelvan Empire's intergalactic ship and recover not only valuable data on the methods employed by their engines to achieve such incredible speeds, but also intact and working paralysis field generators and the devices used to temporarily reduce a person to a dehydrated, porous cuboctahedron solid.

Some adjustments to the plan were necessary to accommodate the new, unexpected but highly prized technologies.

#

With the majority of his missions completed. Spock then began the next step. Within the massive underground construction complex, a very different ship began to take shape.

The speed of the ship's construction would have astounded Spock, had he not been intimately familiar with the capabilities of his facility. Even compared to systems from his own time, it was impressive.

Before even another year had passed, the ship was ready.

The design was more than the simple, functional style developed by Vulcans, but less than the elegant, almost fragile looking Human designs that made up the backbone of the Federation. It would not be that big, only half again as large as a Constitution class starship, but had very little room for any crew and was instead densely packed.

Some Borg inspired technologies were clearly evident; the green glow spreading out along the mostly black Neutronium hull.

Two warp nacelles, attaching directly to the long rectangular hull, ran for the entire length of the ship, and a glowing red oval deflector dish took up most of the angled front.

Midway down, an enormous sphere bulged out the top and the bottom. Inside sat the power plant that would drive the energies needed to drive the equipment crammed into every corner of the ship.

Unfortunately, the power generation capabilities of the ship were likely beyond Spock's ability to mask for long. Once it was fully powered up, the chance of detection would become exponentially greater as time progressed.

A human would have worried, possibly fretting as the completion of this stage of his plan neared, but Spock was only half human and had long ago learned to deal with his own anxiety, most of the time. Patiently, he thoroughly tested everything, perfecting and altering as unexpected situations cropped up and new data became available.

Eventually there was nothing else to do but 'fire her up' and 'take the lass out for a twirl', as Mr Scott would have been inclined to say.

But first he had to name it.

It was amusing, Spock thought, that choosing a new name was more difficult for him than choosing what weapons to arm the ship with.

His Vulcan half felt a simple numeric based designation would be sufficient, since it was unlikely another ship of the same class would be made, but his human half wanted something else. To make it worse, he was torn between calling it something irreverent, like he had the Jellyfish, something profound, or something personal, like Leila, Zarabeth, T'pring, Christine, or even Amanda.

Eventually he settled on a name that 'felt' appropriate – The Destiny Reborn.

There was no tunnel leading out of the underground facility, so leaving would the first true test of one of the Destiny Reborn's main capabilities.

The stealth scouts attached themselves to their docking points along the larger ship's hull, the required crew-member androids took their stations, and then Spock, seated on the bridge near the centre of the ship, engaged the phased cloak.

Immediately the ship shimmered out of phase with the surrounding planet, and then smoothly rose away and out into open space without disturbing so much as a grain of sand.

Moving away at a casual warp seven, Spock and his crew tested the sensors and other equipment, ensuring everything was operating within acceptable parameters. Very quickly all tests were complete, and only very minor adjustments were required, all of which could be made without returning to the base.

Seeing no reason to delay, Spock dropped the cloak to begin the next stage of his audacious plan. He plotted the course required to sling shot around the candidate sun to return him to a specific point in the past.

At any moment, he half expected agents from the Temporal Integrity Commission to appear with a cease and desist order, but it didn't happen.

It was hardly his first time, but Spock still found the experience disconcerting. Half of his android crew failed to make the transition intact, and many systems on the ship suffered catastrophic damage. It was still all within acceptable limits, as Spock had of course design everything with a minimum of triple redundancy.

As soon as possible, they re-engaged the cloak and undertook repairs while travelling to near the spot that would become a pivotal point in history. By the time they arrived, the ship was once again fully functional and prepared for its mission.

Stealthed drones, that made up a significant percentage of the Destiny Reborn's mass, deployed; spreading out to encompass a huge area of space. Once in position, they activated a massive, all concealing shield, preventing just about any form of radiation or signal from leaving. An even larger Hologram was then layered on top, further reducing the possibility of anybody spotting this newly created 'blank region.

The stealth ships also detached from the Destiny Reborn and began tracing out an intricate lattice of energy, while Spock settled in for the expected wait.

His calculations again proved to be nearly flawless, and at the predicted time, an anomaly appeared in almost the exact location expected. This time nobody would detect or send ships to investigate the 'lightning storm' that was developing at the site.

Spock could not deny he felt tension and anxiety now. While it may have been his returned youth, with its unexpected side effects, or simply his human half, he found the wait almost unbearable.

Finally, after an agonising wait, the heavily modified, 24th Century Romulan mining ship, the Nerada, emerged from within the artificial black hole and immediately became jammed in the Tholian Energy web waiting for it.

The crew of the stealth ships needed no further instructions.

They swept in, disabling the Borg derived shields before they had a chance to recover from the disruptions of the temporal travel. Androids beamed into the ship, turning any crew they found into inert, porous lumps. The fighting was intense as the Romulans fought back with everything they had, but the end was inevitable; the invaders were too relentless.

Spock himself was also aboard almost before it had finished coming through the event horizon, tapping into the ships systems at hyper-accelerated speeds.

Within scant minutes, everybody had been captured and the ship was completely his.

Over the next few days, Spock checked and double checked everything he possibly could to be certain no evidence of anything that had occurred had slipped out of his hidden sphere. Finally, after an exhaustive search, he was willing to accept success.

Spock allowed himself the luxury of relaxing. While he still had a lot to do, the main issue was dealt with. The Kelvin would not be diverted to investigate, since nothing had been detected, and George Kirk would not die saving the lives of the people escaping the rampaging Romulans from the future.

The restoration of the time-line was underway, now he just had to get home to his own time, and maybe make a few stops on the way.

#

The Temporal Integrity Commission agent could not help smiling as Spock completed his report. He had met many famous people during his stint as an agent, but he still got a kick out of having the chance to interact with people as interesting as Mr Spock.

"The explanation of your actions is very persuasive," he said.

"I am not attempting to be persuasive, merely to accurately recount the truth," said Spock.

"Nevertheless, it is, and while there is still considerable review to be done, I believe I can safely say that your actions are well within the bounds of the Temporal Directive and there is likely a yet another commendation for you somewhere down the line."

This statement of course made Spock raise an eyebrow.

"Don't get me wrong," continued the agent. "There are several things that will be hotly debated at the highest levels of the agency, but the efforts you made to restrict the effects of your actions and return the timeline to its original state are exemplary.

"The fact you kidnapped the whole population of the capital planet of the Romulan Star Empire, basically turning them into rocks and abducting them before they were destroyed by their star going supernova, is something that nobody is going to be happy about, but it did save their lives, and by keeping it secret until after the Nerada left this time line, you neatly avoided at least one paradox.

"Nero and his crew will still face charges for their actions, of course, but that is not a temporal issue, and the recordings you took from the Guardian validate your decisions and are considered indisputable."

He paused, giving Spock's brilliant mind a moment to process his words, knowing that the man must have already thought this through before embarking on his extraordinary quest.

"The data you brought back, especially the information on the regeneration affect of the genetically engineered Humans Augments, is not necessarily a great boon, and neither is the data you collected on the de-aging radiation, although both will certainly be welcomed - eventually. I personally do not think we are ready for immortality, but once again, this is not a temporal issue since you did not obtain them from the future, as such."

Spock nodded, signifying he had expected this too.

"And even your final actions, which on the surface appear to be purely personal and have reintroduced a wild-card factor we had thought long gone, did not cause any change in the timeline that could be detected. Of course, some people will be of the opinion that this is a major mistake, but there are always people like that.

"At the end of the day, all I can say is 'well done'. I wish all the people I encounter in this line of work had put as much thought into their actions as you have."

He stood up, shook Spock's hand, and then beamed out, leaving the ancient Vulcan who now lived in a youth's body with a thoughtful look on his face.

"Is he gone?" came a familiar voice from an adjacent room.

"As well you know, since you were eavesdropping on the entire conversation," answered Spock.

"Yes, but I didn't want to appear rude," said the young man entering the room. "Although, I am not sure if I should be insulted - I suppose 'Wild card' is a step up from 'Joker' or 'Pain in the Posterior' as I am sure some people still consider me."

"You could indeed make that assumption," agreed Spoke with no hint of sarcasm or irony as his guest paused in the act of filling two glasses with a sparkling blue liquid to look at him suspiciously.

Spock managed to keep his face dispassionate.

"You know, Spock, if we keep bringing each other back to life, people may start to believe those rumours about our relationship."

"You were as logical a test of Khan's blood and the rejuvenation therapy as any," answered Spock. "And of all my friends, you, Jim, have proved to be a most accomplished partner."

At Kirk's raised eyebrow, Spock added, "In the professional sense, of course."

"Of course," agreed Kirk, picking up the two glasses and handing one to his friend. "Although I am still not certain exactly how I feel about owing my life to Khan's blood."

"You were dead," answered Spock. "My options were limited."

"I had a beautiful funeral. That fake body you replaced mine with look quite stately, even after they dug it up."

"If you are having second thoughts about being rejuvenated, we could always attempt to locate the comet from Gamma Hydra IV and expose you to its radiation for a few days to return you to a more 'stately' age," offered Spock with complete insincere innocence.

"No!" said Kirk quickly. "I mean, I wouldn't want to appear ungrateful after all the effort you put into restoring me."

"It would be rather rude," agreed Spock amiably, "and quite illogical, since I am sure you have no intention of returning to your former retirement anytime soon."

"You know, the universe _has_ gotten quite a bit larger while I have been gone. I hear there are some new frontiers opening up in both the Gamma and Delta quadrants. Starfleet could probably do with a couple of experienced explorers out there."

"Indeed," agreed Spock, raising his glass. "The thought had crossed my mind."

And for a moment, for just the briefest split second, Kirk was sure he saw Spock smile.

The End.

_Once again, huge thanks to Alphafightclub, especially BennyS, for helping make this a better story than it would have been._


End file.
